Bloomberg:

Meltdown Possible at Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Tokyo Electric Official Says
By Tsuyoshi Inajima, Yuji Okada and Shigeru Sato - Mar 14, 2011 12:25 AM ET

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a meltdown is possible at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 3 reactor where a hydrogen explosion occurred, injuring six workers.

A meltdown may occur should the reactor’s fuel rods remain exposed, Managing Director Akio Komori said at a press briefing in Tokyo today. The vessel containing the reactor’s radioactive core is intact after the blast at 11:01 a.m. local time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier.

The possibility of a large radiation leak is very small, even as radiation levels at the reactor are rising, Edano, the government’s main spokesman, said at a press conference. Tokyo Electric said six workers were injured at the station 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the Japanese capital. These included four company employees and two contract workers.

The blast follows a similar explosion on March 12 after a hydrogen leak at the station’s No. 1 reactor, in which the walls of the reactor building were destroyed, and four workers were injured. No damage was reported to the container of the No. 1 plant, according to Tokyo Electric.

Asia’s largest utility is seeking to avoid a meltdown of at least two reactors at the nuclear power station by flooding them with water and boric acid to eliminate the potential for a catastrophic release of radiation into the atmosphere. The station lost power to keep the reactor core cool after the March 11 earthquake, the largest ever recorded in Japan.

Winds in the area of the Fukushima plant are blowing at less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) per hour generally in an northeasterly and northerly direction, according to a 9 a.m. update from the Japan Meteorological Agency today.